The present invention relates generally to information searching and, more particularly, to information searching on the Internet.
The Internet is a worldwide decentralized network of computers having the ability to communicate with each other. The Internet has gained broad recognition as a viable medium for communicating and interacting across multiple networks. The World-Wide Web (Web) was created in the early 1990""s and is comprised of server-hosting computers (Web servers) connected to the Internet that have hypertext documents or Web pages stored therewithin. Web pages are accessible by client programs (i.e., Web browsers) utilizing the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) via a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) connection between a client-hosting device and a server-hosting device. While HTTP and hypertext documents are the prevalent forms for the Web, the Web itself refers to a wide range of protocols including Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTPS), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and Gopher, and content formats including plain text, Extensible Markup Language (XML), as well as image formats such as Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) and Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG).
Specific to the Web, a Web server is a computer program (housed in a computer) that serves requested Web pages and files. A Web client is a requesting program associated with a user. A Web browser is an exemplary Web client for use in requesting Web pages and files from Web servers.
A Web site is conventionally a collection of Web pages and files related to a particular subject that includes a beginning file called a home page. A large Web site may reside on a number of geographically-dispersed Web servers. The Web site of Ericsson, Inc. (www.ericsson.com), for example, consists of thousands of Web pages and files spread out over various Web servers in locations world-wide.
An intranet can be a private computer network that is conventionally contained within an enterprise and that conventionally includes one or more servers in communication with multiple user computers. An intranet may include interlinked local area networks and may also use leased-lines in a wide-area network. An intranet may or may not include connections to the outside Internet. Intranets conventionally utilize various Internet protocols and, in general, often look like private versions of the Internet. An intranet user conventionally accesses an intranet server via a Web browser running locally on his/her computer (i.e., intranet client device).
Exemplary Web browsers for both Internet and intranet use include Netscape Navigator(copyright) (Netscape Communications Corporation, Mountain View, Calif.) and Internet Explorer(copyright) (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash.). Web browsers typically provide a graphical user interface for retrieving and viewing information, applications and other resources hosted by Internet/intranet servers (hereinafter collectively referred to as xe2x80x9cWeb serversxe2x80x9d).
Web content including, but not limited to, information, applications, applets and other video and audio resources (collectively referred to herein as xe2x80x9cfilesxe2x80x9d) are conventionally delivered from a Web server to a Web browser on a user""s computer in the form of Web pages. As is known to those skilled in this art, a Web page is conventionally formatted via a standard page description language such as HyperText Markup Language (HTML), and typically displays text and graphics, and can play sound, animation, and video data. HTML provides basic document formatting and allows a Web content provider to specify hypertext links (typically manifested as highlighted text) to other servers and files. When a user selects a particular hypertext link, a Web browser reads and interprets the address, called a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) associated with the link, connects the Web browser with the Web server at that address, and makes an HTTP request for the file identified in the link. The web server then sends the requested file to the client in HTML format which the browser interprets and displays to the user.
Conventional Web browsers typically provide a xe2x80x9cbookmarkxe2x80x9d function that allows users to store the URLs of selected Web pages. A bookmark (referred to as a xe2x80x9cfavoritexe2x80x9d by Microsoft""s Internet Explorer Web browser) can simplify future access to a Web page associated with the bookmark. For frequently visited Web sites, bookmarks can expedite the process of accessing Web pages. For a typical user, a list of bookmarks can become quite large. Furthermore, a user may forget what is contained within a particular bookmarked Web page, or may forget the significance of the bookmark.
To locate information on the Web (or on an intranet) users often utilize a search engine. Search engines are configured to take keywords and phrases provided by a usersand locate various Web pages containing these keywords and phrases. FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional search entry form 10 containing a box 12 in which a user can input keywords and phrases to be searched by a search engine.
Typically, a search engine utilizes a spider (also called a xe2x80x9ccrawlerxe2x80x9d or a xe2x80x9cbotxe2x80x9d) that visits Web pages on Web sites that want to be searchable. A spider will then read each Web page and will use hypertext links on a Web page to discover and read Web pages at other Web sites. Information read by a spider is then used to generate an index (sometimes called a xe2x80x9ccatalogxe2x80x9d) from the Web pages that have been read. Most of the major search engines (i.e., Lycos, HotBot, Alta Vista) attempt to do something close to indexing the entire content of the Web (or an intranet).
Notwithstanding the above, there continues to be a need for improved searching of the Web (or an intranet.
In view of the above discussion, it is an object of the present invention to enhance searching for information on the Internet.
This and other objects of the present invention are provided by systems, methods and computer program products for allowing a Web server search engine to search a user""s bookmarks stored within the user""s browser on a client device. A user""s search request to a search engine is accompanied by a list of bookmarks stored within the user""s browser. The list of bookmarks can be sent to the search engine with the search request either as a cookie or as a Multi-Purpose Internet Mail Extension (MIME) attachment, or by other techniques.
The invention stems from the realization that, typically, a user will conduct a search of the Web (or of an intranet) for a particular subject matter (or for a particular Web site) via a search engine even though the user may have relevant URLs stored as bookmarks within his or her browser. It may be difficult for a user to remember what he or she has bookmarked, especially for large numbers of stored bookmarks. Bookmarks can be a valuable resource to a user. Unfortunately, bookmarks often become overlooked by a user searching for information on the Internet.
A search engine receiving a search request and accompanying list of bookmarks initially searches the list of bookmarks for URLs that satisfy the search request. Each of the user""s bookmarks that satisfies the search request is then displayed within the user""s browser. The search engine can then search the Internet for Web pages (or other files) that also satisfy the search request. The results from this search may also be displayed within the user""s browser. Accordingly, the present invention can help save both user time as well as sever processing time by performing searches of a user""s stored bookmarks before a search of Internet resources is conducted.